Steam?

TheMechWarrior

These guys are my kinda guys, I'd love to pay them a visit.

Myles

So are these guys using the keg as a steam kettle, then through a coil heat exchanger in the boiler and into a bucket to recover condensate?

Possibly as a heat boost, as that might not provide enough energy for an entire run. I honestly never concidered that application, but it sure makes sense on some levels.

grim

@TheMechWarrior said: Keep us in the loop with pictures grim, I'll be keen to how you implement this.

Going to run a 1" steam line to a steam filter, than down to a stainless sparge arm located right above the mash tank agitator. Come straight down to a tee, and two arms off the tee. Will do a line of small holes off the bottom of the sparge arms. Nothing fancy at all.

punkin

Don't make the mistake of leaving the steam arm in the mash while it ferments like i did. Corn starch blocked all the holes and it took me quite some potentially explosive minutes to realize that the sudden whoosh was some holes becoming unblocked.

TheMechWarrior

@grim I take it the motivation for the steam is a corn/rye mash bill?

The distributor sounds simple enough, I guess the control will be the key. I was looking at steam jacketed mash tun but DSI will be a lot cheaper.

You might need to consider an interlock with a level switch on the mash tun? Don't really want live steam getting out and about.

grim

Of course. We installed the big steam-to-water heat exchanger to be able to produce large quantities of strike water quickly (without a big HLT), and were planning to use a scald technique with the corn, but changed gears based on the advice of the plumber.

He thought the sparge design was way too complicated. He suggested a section of stainless tube attached to a steam-grade hose (glorified steam wand). Put it in, turn on the steam. Take it down and wash it out when done. Simple approach but the agitator in the tank makes that risky. Says that most of the sauce manufacturers locally were doing it in this way.

Control? Mass of the mash makes it easy, nothing is going to happen quickly. It would be relatively easy to source a 1" steam-rated solenoid and use a simple PID or even a ramp & hold controller.

Closing the lid and running the steam injection for a while sounds like a really cheap approach to sanitization too (and it's "Organic").

Not going to know how well it works until we try it, mash tun is sized more than double the still, 2270 liters.

TheMechWarrior

:) I like it

razerhawg

I just received a full keg and a box of 2" ferrules. Today I ordered a steam low water cutoff, electronic water level (feed water) controller, pressuretrol steam pressure switch, sight glass & pressure gauge. I'm going to add 3 - 5 kW elements for a total of 15 kW. Going to insulate with high temp mineral wool insulation.

Planning on having one element just on/off, 1 element on a steam temperature based controller with an SSR to modulate temperature (and by proxy pressure), and one element on a rheostat. All elements would be interlocked with low water lockout, high pressure switch and snap disc limit switches.

I figure I can heat up 7.5 gallons of water to steam in a hurry and have the capacity to maintain 3 or 4 psig easily.

I am going to try and make a couple of extra kegs with steam injection ports and mash\ferment\strip in the same keg. Going to add some flexible heaters on mash\ferment\strip kegs and insulate kegs. Figure I can hopefully get away from the mind numbing bags and mop buckets needed for all grains.

OK tell me what's wrong with this design.

grim

Kudos, sounds like a damn good plan.

Question though, why both the Pressuretrol and the SSR, since they are accomplishing similar tasks (regulating the pressure in the boiler). Is the Pressuretrol managing the max operating pressure, the snap disc limit switch providing a secondary emergency cutoff, and the SSR providing operating pressure control?

The only thing that can get tricky is the that the pressuretrol usually sets the cut-in/cut-out pressure and differential. You could theoretically set these in a way that would make trying to control with the SSR frustrating (differential not met, so pressuretrol has cut power to the element, but SSR is demanding for elements on).

SSR would give you finer control than the Pressuretrol, but from a safety perspective, those Honeywell units are very reliable and have been almost the defacto standard for years. Local code required us to have two matching pressuretrols on our boiler, along with two low water cutoffs.

razerhawg

Yes using pressure and snap disc limits for safety. I am kind of hoping that I can just dial in a setting with the rheostat controlled one, but thought I'd put the ssr / temp control on too.
Does the theory of mashing/fermenting/stripping in one container sound plausible? Thought I would put an 8" ferrule on top with a cap drilled for an airlock for fermenting, then an 8" X ? Up to an El and condenser. I've read several threads on this do far and looks like just for stripping a 2" column with maybe a little bit of packing would work.

grim

Sure, the major issues have to do with things like how to effectively clean it if doing double or triple duty, and the commercial guys say "terrible idea", because it creates workflow and process issues tying up equipment. You also have no choice but to do this all on-grain.

I used to mash and ferment on grain in a single vessel. I think there is actually a benefit to do it that way on the hobby side, especially for whiskey mashes that require a boil/gelatinization. Why? With a 30 minute boil to gelatinize, you are effectively sterilizing the mash and the fermenting vessel in one shot. No transfer and no additional equipment needing to touch the mash means you reduce the probability of introducing any other microbes/infection. Also, depending on your location, how much yeast you have around, it reduces the possibility of accidentally introducing a competing yeast strain.

Punkin has made a good point on numerous threads though, you risk the potential to plug your steam injection manifold when you ferment. It's going to be difficult to keep those little beasties and all manner of "stuff" from plugging that up. An interesting solution to this might be a way to let you occasionally "purge" the manifold with compressed air.

razerhawg

That would be a great idea, maybe even a little O2 to stir up the yeasties. I was planning on having something like 3 injection ports on the lower portions of the tank. I tried the rice and even the DWWG and it just seems like a lot of work. I was hoping I could build up 2 or 3 of these and keep something all grain going all the time.
Just for stripping runs would you think a 2" column would be OK, or should I look at 4" to give some expansion room? I have a standard SD 2" condenser, but was thinking I might go to the longer one since I could easily run 10kW or more.

Myles

Electrically heated fermenter, just for preboiling not for heating during fermentation.

Steam injector, screws in as replacement for element.

Gas heated keg steam kettle with concrete insulated shroud.

I tried fermenting with the steam wand in ONCE. My holes were too small and got gunged up. If you are going to do this it might be worth continuously pumping air (or wash?) through the injector whilst fermenting, to keep it clear.

razerhawg

If you were pumping air during fermentation would that over stimulate the O2 levels of the yeast

Myles

Well you can always recirculate the vapour captured in the top of the fermenter. I suspect though that circulating wash from the top third of the fermenter back to the base might be the trick.